Llanystumdwy’s ladies celebrate first league win of season after five losses on bounce

NORTH WALES WOMEN’S FOOTBALL LEAGUE REPORT – NOV 13

Llanystumdwy 2 (S O’Hara 7, Matthews 17)
Caernarfon Town 1 (Parry 50)

Congratulations/llongyfarchiadau i Llanystumdwy – winners in the North Wales Women’s League for the first time this season.

Amazing mother-of-nine Sarah O’Hara, 42, put Llanystumdwy ahead in the seventh minute.

The lead was doubled on 17 minutes when joint player-manager Tash Matthews netted her first goal for the club.

Llan stayed in front until the second half when Alaw Parry pulled one back for Caernarfon with a long-distance cracker.

From here, the lack of confidence which came from five straight previous defeats started to show in the home side.

Llan were glad to hold on in the end, with the Cofis pushing hard for their first point of the season.

Llanystumdwy joint-manager Sion Parry admitted the poor start to the campaign had cast serious doubts over the future of the team, which joined the league last season.

Sion, a prolific marksman for Llan’s men’s team who recently returned to action following injury with current club Nantlle Vale, said: “It’s been challenging. We seriously contemplated folding at one point, but are glad we didn’t and hopefully things are looking up for us.

“It’s been an incredibly frustrating season, not just for me as joint-manager but for the players, turning up to games with only 11 players. The most we had for a game was 13, and that was with two injured players helping us out and playing a few minutes if needed.

“It has been a tough start, in our 5 games before today, we’ve played 4 of the current top 5 in the league, but the girls have given their all every single game and have been competitive in most games.

“The Llanfairfechan game (2-3 loss) really hurt the girls. We’d played so well for 80 minutes, we were in a good position at 2-0 up, but with only 11 available, unfortunately we picked up a couple of injuries during the game and the girls really battled to hold on, so to end up losing 3-2 was a really tough one to take but all credit to Llanfairfechan who kept going right until the end.”

Sion went on discuss recent new recruits brought into the ranks.

“In the last couple of weeks we’ve made some additions to our squad, as well as signing Sian-Elin from Llangefni. I’m delighted to bring her in, a really good player who can play anywhere across the midfield or the forward line. She’ll offer us something different, can be a threat in the final third, good in the air, and will always give you 100%.

“I’m looking forward to seeing her ability shine through in the coming weeks and her confidence growing as she plays week in, week out.

“The other additions to our squad are Nerrisa Owen and Amanda Hopewell, who were most recently with Mountain Rangers.

“We’d tried to get them in for a while and they’ve finally decided to join so I’m pleased about that,

“Nerrisa is a midfielder who loves to get on the ball and take people on, while Amanda’s a defender who won’t shirk a tackle. They’ll add much needed experience to our squad made up of a lot of Under 21’s.

“We’ve also added Jo, who hasn’t played for a few years but has impressed in training, as well as 16 year old Siriol Clow.

“Going forward it’ll add vital player availability for us on match days, and hopefully we’ll be going to games with more than 11 or 12 players.”

Commenting on the team’s first win of the season on Sunday, Sion added: “The girls played really well at times today, first half especially, we found ourselves 2-0 up at half time and looked in control for most of it.

“The amazing Sarah O’Hara, who’s showing no signs of slowing down, scored the first, and our solid centre-back and joint-manager Tash Matthews notched the second – her first ever goal for Llan.

“But then the lack of confidence taken from previous games was really starting to show midway through the second half, as Caernarfon started to put the pressure on and we started to get really sloppy on the ball, and when they scored a great goal from 25 yards out with 10 minutes to go I was thinking Llanfairfechan all over again!

“This time though the girls saw it out much better, and held on for a much-needed, confidence-boosting win.

“I’m hoping we can kick on from this and get more points on the board before Christmas. We’ve got quality in the squad, the likes of our captain Hana Wellings, our goalkeeper Sara Lacey, Tash in defence, our top scorer last season Grace Mpuku, Sarah O’Hara, who I’ve already mentioned, and i could go on with our youngsters Ellie Williams, Jess Williams, Leonie O’Hara, Chloe Roberts, the 2 Ffion’s, Dunn and Emery etc…

“And with the five additions we’ve made over the past couple of weeks, hopefully we’ll be enjoying more of our Sundays over the next few weeks!”

LLANYSTUMDWY

Sara Lacey
Leonie O’Hara
Sarah O’Hara (N/A 70)
N/A
Tash Matthews
Ellie Williams (N/A 75)
Hana Wellings (c)
Nerrisa Owen (Ffion Emery 60)
Sian-Elin Morgan-Price
Grace Mpuku (N/A 60)
N/A

CAERNARFON TOWN

Sara Williams
Elin Jones
Lauren Murphy
Lisa Jones
Alaw Parry
Natalie Lovelock
Zara Williams
Rhiannon Williams (Mair Jones 84)
Eluned Thomas (Elen Bee 84)
Awen Pritchard
Ceri Owen